16 June was the 25th Birthday of GIFs, according to Fast Company. We missed it, but we’re going to make up for the oversight.
“Choosy programmers choose GIF,” quipped Steve Wilhite of CompuServe, after he created the GIF image compression file format in 1987. It allowed for sequenced upload delays necessary for embedded animations. There’s a nice history of the now ubiquitous .gif on Daily Dot.
Animations above via Cari Vander Yacht. Tip o’ the tarboosh to OddMan for the GIF Birthday link, and here’s the Tacky Raccoons GIF Archive that includes Bunk’s Originals.
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UPDATE: In the interview with Daily Dot (linked above) Steve Wilhite said that he thought the first .GIF animation was of an airplane. This is one of the first that I ever captured, several computers ago:
Here it is, all blowed up, in 5 frames of pixellated glory:
Is this the first .gif animation Wilhite was referring to? I don’t know, but it’s a contender.
[Update 2: Fixed broken link to Daily Dot.]
Tacky Raccoons 
HAPPY .GIF DAY everyone. Everyone loves a .gif.
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David– Wilhite said he thought that the first .gif animation was of an airplane. I think I know which it was, but I couldn’t find a copy. Had a 747 flying through 3 or 4 frames of clouds, unless it was something with a smaller resolution. My favorite is the lo-res Terror Alert Banana.
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Correction. DC10. This is the one I was thinking of. Post updated.
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